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My best guess is that these carriers regret offering unlimited data.

Dylan16807 12y ago
I see a lot of new offerings that have unlimited slow data. I doubt they regret it; it gives people peace of mind while still giving them incentive to upgrade.
- derefr 12y ago
  Unlimited slow data is kind of cool. But unlimited, really slow, and free data (like the Kindle's Whispernet) is awesome. It's great to never actually be stuck completely without network access, even if you're somewhere your usual provider doesn't even exist. I wish Google and Apple would copy the concept and just have their phones always be on the network, with cell plans just serving as a way to get voice service and get a decent download speed. Now that Google has built out an MVNO, they could definitely enable such a thing.
yellowapple 12y ago
If they regret offering it, then they'd get rid of it like AT&T did. No, T-Mobile and Sprint embrace it. It's what differentiates them from their competitors. They know that the claims of "oh no, unlimited data would cause congestion issues!!!!11one" were a poor excuse even a decade ago, let alone in the present day, and are thus unafraid to offer customers something that doesn't result in total shafting. AT&T and Verizon can have their fancy networks; they're moot compared to the millions of customers that pick Sprint and T-Mobile specifically because of the unlimited data plans. Hell, T-Mobile's business model pretty much revolves around it at this point. "We'll give you a couple gigs of high-speed data; if you go over that, we'll just throttle you to 2G speeds without charging overages or any such nonsense. If you want more high-speed, pay for more of it or go with our actual unlimited plan. Oh, and we'll let you rollover your unused high-speed data and we won't make music streaming count toward it and we'll pay your current carrier's ETFs if you switch because we know that that's the only reason why you haven't already switched to us and you won't be locked into a contract anymore." They advertise all this every chance they get, and they deliver on those promises. I switched to T-Mobile a year ago (from Sprint, which I switched to from AT&T) because of the zero overages, meaning that I wouldn't have to have an unlimited plan just for the peace of mind of not being shafted on a particular month because I watched one too many videos on YouTube or somesuch. A year later and I haven't looked back; definitely one of the better decisions I've made. Google Fi doesn't offer anything that would even remotely compel me to swtich (not even the dual-carrier stuff; I've found T-Mobile to be consistently better coverage-wise and speed-wise than Sprint in my area, so I'd probably just be on T-Mobile's network all the time anyway).
- FireBeyond 12y ago
  "We'll give you a couple gigs of high-speed data; if you go over that, we'll just throttle you to 2G speeds without charging overages or any such nonsense. If you want more high-speed, pay for more of it or go with our actual unlimited plan." ... which slows you to 2G speeds after 5GB, instead. I want to like T-mo, I've been a customer in the past until coverage made me give them up, but that point above is somewhat an important omission.
  - yellowapple 12y ago
    > ... which slows you to 2G speeds after 5GB, instead. You do realize they really do offer an unthrottled unlimited plan, right? $100/mo. for 2 lines (so $50/mo./line) as of five minutes ago when I double-checked their site.

I see a lot of new offerings that have unlimited slow data. I doubt they regret it; it gives people peace of mind while still giving them incentive to upgrade.

derefr 12y ago
Unlimited slow data is kind of cool. But unlimited, really slow, and free data (like the Kindle's Whispernet) is awesome. It's great to never actually be stuck completely without network access, even if you're somewhere your usual provider doesn't even exist. I wish Google and Apple would copy the concept and just have their phones always be on the network, with cell plans just serving as a way to get voice service and get a decent download speed. Now that Google has built out an MVNO, they could definitely enable such a thing.

yellowapple 12y ago

If they regret offering it, then they'd get rid of it like AT&T did. No, T-Mobile and Sprint embrace it. It's what differentiates them from their competitors. They know that the claims of "oh no, unlimited data would cause congestion issues!!!!11one" were a poor excuse even a decade ago, let alone in the present day, and are thus unafraid to offer customers something that doesn't result in total shafting. AT&T and Verizon can have their fancy networks; they're moot compared to the millions of customers that pick Sprint and T-Mobile specifically because of the unlimited data plans. Hell, T-Mobile's business model pretty much revolves around it at this point. "We'll give you a couple gigs of high-speed data; if you go over that, we'll just throttle you to 2G speeds without charging overages or any such nonsense. If you want more high-speed, pay for more of it or go with our actual unlimited plan. Oh, and we'll let you rollover your unused high-speed data and we won't make music streaming count toward it and we'll pay your current carrier's ETFs if you switch because we know that that's the only reason why you haven't already switched to us and you won't be locked into a contract anymore." They advertise all this every chance they get, and they deliver on those promises. I switched to T-Mobile a year ago (from Sprint, which I switched to from AT&T) because of the zero overages, meaning that I wouldn't have to have an unlimited plan just for the peace of mind of not being shafted on a particular month because I watched one too many videos on YouTube or somesuch. A year later and I haven't looked back; definitely one of the better decisions I've made. Google Fi doesn't offer anything that would even remotely compel me to swtich (not even the dual-carrier stuff; I've found T-Mobile to be consistently better coverage-wise and speed-wise than Sprint in my area, so I'd probably just be on T-Mobile's network all the time anyway).

FireBeyond 12y ago
"We'll give you a couple gigs of high-speed data; if you go over that, we'll just throttle you to 2G speeds without charging overages or any such nonsense. If you want more high-speed, pay for more of it or go with our actual unlimited plan." ... which slows you to 2G speeds after 5GB, instead. I want to like T-mo, I've been a customer in the past until coverage made me give them up, but that point above is somewhat an important omission.
- yellowapple 12y ago
  > ... which slows you to 2G speeds after 5GB, instead. You do realize they really do offer an unthrottled unlimited plan, right? $100/mo. for 2 lines (so $50/mo./line) as of five minutes ago when I double-checked their site.